Charif Souki, who is leading Houston-based Cheniere’s transformation from a natural gas importer into an exporter, collected about $142 million last year, according to regulatory documents filed Monday.

That dwarfs his pay the year before, $57.5 million — the largest sum any Houston chief earned in 2012.

Of course, the vast bulk of Souki’s wealth came from stock awards. Last year, his shares in Cheniere amounted to $132 million of his pay. That’s up from $49 million in stock awards the year before.

Still, Souki’s pay far outweighed packages for leaders at companies more than 30 times the size of Cheniere, which was worth $12.4 billion after trading on Monday.

Exxon Mobil Chairman CEO Rex Tillerson, who has led the $437 billion company for nearly a decade, saw his compensation drop by $12.1 million to $28.1 million last year.

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Prior to joining the Houston Chronicle in 2013, Collin Eaton covered the local banking and finance scene at the Houston Business Journal. Before that, he held internships at newspapers in Texas and Washington D.C., writing about business, money or higher education. He graduated from the University of Texas at Austin in 2011.

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